… and screamed.

There was an answering yell, and then Bucky-Zee pushed her. "What's with you?!" he hissed. "We're supposed to be in cognito!"

Around them, Ro noticed the whole street looking curiously at them.

"I mean, do you want Bennett to find us? Hey, jeez, leggo! Ow, ow, ow! Ro!"

She ignored his whining until they were in an alley, and then she pushed him against the wall. "All right, Twerp, what the hell is going on?!"

Zee scowled at her and tried to shake her off, but she pushed him back. "Knock it off! What's with you?"

"What's going on!" she repeated, maybe slightly hysterical.

"You're manhandling me, that's what!"

Ro narrowed her eyes. "You're going to tell me, or so help me I will kill you, you little fake."

Now he looked genuinely perplexed. "What are you talking about, Ro? Lose the rest of your already few marbles? Hey." He flinched away from her fist, though it probably was only for show. She doubted she could ever hit Zee in any incarnation.

"Start talking."

"Maybe if you gave me an idea of what I'm supposed to be talking about," he said mutinously.

And she did, in rapid-fire speech, spewing it all out, how he was all wrong, everything was wrong, her head was killing her, and if she met any more fake Zees without meeting the real one, she was going to kill him.

Several expressions went over the boy's face – disbelief, interest, humor, curiosity, thinking, and then falling on a sort of bland acceptance.

"All right, let's pretend I believe you, don't think you've been smoking magic mushrooms. What do you think I can do?"

That question stumped Ro. She hadn't ever thought that after telling Zee – any of them – they wouldn't know how to fix it. Zee always knew what to do. It was part of his programming, if not literally. She'd thought, if she had thought about it at all, that once she told him, it'd all get better. She clung to that. "How should I know? You're the evil genius."

He looked at her, cocking a brow. "You must be telling the truth. You'd never call be a genius otherwise. Besides, you're never this sane. Hey, drop the fist, I said I'd help you, fake-Ro."

"You'd better, fake-Zee." Even as she said it, part of Ro was smiling, and she stepped away from her threatening posture.

"Well, I guess we'd better go to your favorite place in the world. The library." He grinned at her devilishly, making it quite clear that he knew she would hate such a place. "Now, explain to me everything, again. And slower, please. And without the Ro-ese."

Part of her was marveling that he was taking this all in stride, accepting, because Ro realized that if someone had told her what she had just told him, she'd have slowly backed away. She started to explain, again, growing angry when he interrupted with questions she really didn't know answers to. She barely understood what was happening, and it was happening to her.

"No, I did not push a button that said Do Not Push."

"Never know with you," Zee said, grinning as he typed at the console, eyes darting over the rapidly moving text. Apparently he could read and type as fast as the real Zee. "Believe it or not, there's not that much written about parallel universes and alternative dimensions. I mean, there's Star Trek's Mirrorverse and not much else. The rest is science fiction."

"Since when is Star Trek nonfiction?"

He gave her a look. "Believe what you want, Ro, but everyone knows it's real."

"Right, Zee. Just like Christmas-land."

"Just go through the tree with a Tree for a door." He typed some more. "There's also the philosophy segment, but that's just nonsense. People like Matin and …"

Ro's head snapped up. "That's it. It's …"